Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Russert Effect

I agree with John Cole, though perhaps not in the way he says.

Yes, Tim Russert was a major figure in the news and yes all the news people miss him (even those who didn't like everything he did). He was big enough that it was inevitable that there would be hours of news coverage of his death.

But the fact that he was big enough that his death warrants hours of news coverage is a perfect illustration of the "news figure as media star" problem. No news figure should be big enough that such coverage is justified. Anyone that big cannot report on the news without impacting the news by the very act of them focusing on it (call it the Observer Effect of journalism). Russert's involvement in the Plame Affair is a perfect example. He became part of the story because he was to big.

Anyone who is news cannot be an impartial reporter of news.

2 Comments:

Blogger Excellene Blog said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

2:14 AM  
Blogger Excellene Blog said...

he is a great man in his industry. we lost another examplry new people.

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2:15 AM  

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